A web publisher submitted a question centered on whether duplicate articles, presumably stolen content, can have a negative effect on a website. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that stolen content can negatively impact a site’s rankings. Google’s John Mueller confirmed in a webmaster hangout that there are “edge” cases where stolen content does indeed affect a site’s rankings.
Can Stolen Content Affect Site Ranking?
Numerous discussions in Google’s Webmaster Help forums complain about content thieves outranking the original publisher. Sometimes, these content thieves might outrank the original site for small snippets of content, but not necessarily for actual search terms that people commonly use.
While this may give the impression that stolen content is outranking the original publisher, these “snippet searches” are extremely long-tail and quite likely not properly ranked because Google search tends to falter on extreme long-tail types of searches. This limitation is part of why Rank Brain was invented.
The best way to diagnose whether stolen content is negatively affecting rankings is if the affected site has lost rankings and/or the content thief is ranking for keyword phrases that searchers actually use.
Stolen Content and Negative Effect on Ranking
This phenomenon has been happening for a long time. Despite Google’s best efforts, web publishers still report negative effects from content theft. Here is a partial list of publishers complaining about content thieves outranking the original publisher:
- Stolen content from my site ranked in 1st position, my original – not visible. Why?
- Content Stolen by Someone and lost Traffic and Keyword Ranking – Help me Out
- HELP! Spam copy site ranking better than my site with the original content
- Site With Stolen Content Ranks Higher
- These SOBs are Copying and Rewriting My Content and Out Ranking Me. Get ’em Google
Confirmation that Stolen Content Can Negatively Affect a Site
“Do duplicate articles with the same links get ignored by Google or do they have a negative effect on Google? Do you suggest disavowing duplicate article links as they’re copied without our authorization?”
The question is somewhat vague, but Google’s John Mueller addressed it from the point of view of stolen content. Here is how John Mueller responded:
“Is this like other people are copying your content and you’re wondering if that’s having a negative effect on your site?
So assuming that other people are copying your content, for the most part, that’s something we deal with fairly well. Sometimes there are edge cases that make it a little harder for us to deal with…”
Takeaway – The Impact on Web Publishers
John Mueller goes on to advise the web publisher that they may have legal options such as the DMCA process. What is crucial in his answer is that John Mueller confirms that there are “edge cases” that can affect how Google handles stolen content. However, as noted, just because Google ranks a content thief higher for snippets of content does not necessarily mean the content thief is outranking the original site.
It’s a different story if the content thief outranks the original site with actual keyword phrases, and these kinds of cases seem rare, indicating that Google is doing a commendable job keeping content thieves from benefiting from stolen content. Should Google ban content thieves altogether from the index? How do you feel about content theft?
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